The Accidental Playground

Brooklyn Waterfront Narratives of the Undesigned and Unplanned

Daniel Campo

Explores the remarkable landscape created by individuals and small groups who occupied and rebuilt an abandoned Brooklyn waterfront--will resonate with the "Occupy" movement.

Stands at the intersection of key areas important to urban dwellers, profesisonals and scholars: waterfront, parks, public spaces, deindustrialization, urban ethnography, arts in the city, and the politics of do-it-yourself.

Offers a unique mix of ethnography, photography, first person narrative, and cultural critque.

The Accidental Playground

Brooklyn Waterfront Narratives of the Undesigned and Unplanned

Daniel Campo

A Fordham University Press Publication

Description

Highly illustrated and artfully researched, the book will draw readers into a unique space in one of New York City's most popular boroughs.

The Accidental Playground explores the remarkable landscape created by individuals and small groups who occupied and rebuilt an abandoned Brooklyn waterfront. While local residents, activists, garbage haulers, real estate developers, speculators, and two city administrations fought over the fate of the former Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal (BEDT), others simply took to this decaying edge, transforming it into a unique venue for leisure, creative, and everyday practices. These occupiers and do-it-yourself builders created their own waterfront parks and civic spaces absent every resource needed for successful urban
development, including plans, designs, capital, professional assistance, consensus, and permission from the waterfront's owners. Amid trash, ruins, weeds, homeless encampments, and the operation of an active garbage transfer station, they inadvertently created the "Brooklyn Riviera" and made this waterfront a destination that offered much more than its panoramic vistas of the Manhattan skyline. The terminal evolved into the home turf for unusual and sometimes spectacular recreational, social, and creative subcultures, including the skateboarders who built a short-lived but nationally renowned skatepark, a twenty-five-piece "public" marching band, fire performance troupes, artists, photographers, and filmmakers. At the same time it served the basic recreational needs of local residents.
Collapsing piers became great places to catch fish, sunbathe, or take in the views; the foundation of a demolished warehouse became an ideal place to picnic, practice music, or do an art project; rubble-strewn earth became a compelling setting for film and fashion shoots; a broken bulkhead became a beach; and thick patches of weeds dotted by ailanthus trees became a jungle. These reclamations, all but ignored by city and state governments and property interests that were set to transform this waterfront, momentarily added to the distinctive cultural landscape of the city's most bohemian and rapidly changing neighborhood.

Drawing on a rich mix of documentary strategies, including observation, ethnography, photography, and first-person narrative, Daniel Campo probes this
accidental playground, allowing those who created it to share and examine their own narratives, perspectives, and conflicts. The multiple constituencies of this waterfront were surprisingly diverse, their stories colorful and provocative. When taken together, Campo argues, they suggest a radical reimagining of urban parks and public spaces, and the practices by which they are created and maintained.

The Accidental Playground, which treats readers to an utterly compelling story, is an exciting and distinctive contribution to the growing literature on unplanned spaces and practices in cities today.

The Accidental Playground

Brooklyn Waterfront Narratives of the Undesigned and Unplanned

Daniel Campo

A Fordham University Press Publication

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Discovering and Engaging a WaterfrontChapter 2- The Rise and Fall of Shantytown SkateparkChapter 3- March and Burn: Practice, Performance and Leisure without a PlanChapter 4- Outside Art: Exploring Wildness and Reclamation at the Water's EdgeChapter 5- Local Tales: Hanging Out and Observing Life on the WaterfrontChapter 6- Residential Life: Hardship and Resiliency on the WaterfrontChapter 7- Neighbors Against Garbage: Activism and Uneasy Alliances on the WaterfrontChapter 8- Unplanned Postscript: Dogs, Sunsets, Rock Bands and the Governance of a Waterfront ParkChapter 9- Planning for the Unplanned

The Accidental Playground

Brooklyn Waterfront Narratives of the Undesigned and Unplanned

Daniel Campo

A Fordham University Press Publication

Author Information

Daniel Campo is Associate Professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at Morgan State University in Baltimore. Previously, he was a planner for the New York City Department of City Planning.

The Accidental Playground

Brooklyn Waterfront Narratives of the Undesigned and Unplanned

Daniel Campo

A Fordham University Press Publication

Reviews and Awards

"With its vivid, detailed descriptions The Accidental Playground portrays the many, varied activities that citizens pursue, with great ingenuity and determination, in un-designed urban spaces. Campo's stories make painfully clear what is lost when such spaces are redeveloped. The book makes an invaluable contribution to the growing literature on the value of the un-planned."--Karen Franck, New Jersey Institute of Technology

"Daniel Campo's The Accidental Playground explores critical terrain at the intersection of urban planning, insurgent space, and visual culture. Campo's deep and sensitive portrait of a unique city space eliminated by business-as-usual New York development politics is a thoughtful paen to do-it-yourself placemaking, but also a nuanced warning that planning-for-profit can leave the true public good behind."--Brent D. Ryan, Associate Professor of Urban Design and Public Policy, MIT

"The Accidental Playground provides an informative and fascinating study of a unique area of Brooklyn. From skateboarding and marching bands to artworks and impromptu residences, Campo's perceptive eye and insightful interpretations provide a convincing account of the diverse value of city wastelands for creative urban living."Iain Borden, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL

". . . In this magisterial account of the waterfront, Daniel Campo expertly deploys chops from many disciplines--anthropology, urban studies, journalism, architecture--to paint a vivid portrait of a lost world. Over years of research, he won the trust of the [Brooklyn] locals and they told him what the waterfront meant to them. Campo is a scholar who can write, and his stories preserve the magic of an urban wilderness that has been obliterated by the scheming of the rich and powerful. The Accidental Playground is both timeless and cautionary: places like the Williamsburg waterfront are essential, but if we don't listen to visionaries like Campo, they'll always be stolen from us."-Robert Anasi, The Last Bohemia: Scenes from the Life of Williamsburg, Brooklyn

". . . Thanks to Campo's unbiased writing, this is a great book of what the city used to be." -Ink New York

"Daniel Campo. a former New York City planner, considers the serendipitous development of Williamsburg . . ."--Sam Roberts, The New York Times

"The Accidental Playground provides a great contribution to emerging debates on vernacular creative city dynamics. In particular it offers a critical view on urban politics in relation to the design and planning of parks and other public spaces." --societyandspace.com

"Daniel Campo's book, 'The Accidental Playground,' tells the story of an abandoned rail terminal on the North Brooklyn waterfront that between 200 and 2010 became the home turf of skateboarders, artists, marching bands, homeless people, and neighborhood residents in need of a bigger and freer backyard." -Next City

"Campo's close, yet open, reading should be an inspiration for students of planning and urbanism, and for contemporary practitioners. . ." -Journal of Design History

The Accidental Playground

Brooklyn Waterfront Narratives of the Undesigned and Unplanned

Daniel Campo

A Fordham University Press Publication

From Our Blog

By Daniel Campo
At the turn of the 20th century, the baseball team in Brooklyn was known as the Superbas and they played ball at Washington Park, between First and Third streets along Third Avenue near the Gowanus Canal. While the park was convenient for its patrons, located in a densely developed part of the borough and connected to trolley lines on 3rd and 5th avenues, fans and players frequently complained about the awful odors emanating from the canal and nearby industrial works.